Enough uplifting, all-purpose notions why Obama and
Democrats prevailed, some pertinent (like demographics), many laughable: it was
Sandy the storm, tons of "stuff" Obama promised, or Democratic voter repression
(right!). "No, no," shout disbelievers, "Mitt was too moderate, or too extreme,
his V.P. too fixated." Or Obama was simply superior on the stump. Below such
media noise rumbles a larger tectonic, thus my nomination for what made this
election significant: a gang of rightwing contradictions reared up, then
crashed and burned.

While this trend transcends any one folly, Romney was the
ideal, fossilized Republican awash in a fantasy golden age when
bountiful bosses generated jobs and pampered laborers. Likewise, what
bizarre
political deviance tabbed Paul Ryan as more than a shrill ideologue with
zero national
clout? For the first time, both misfits atop a national ticket lost
their home
states. Remarkably, even that matchless twosome, McCain-Palin, outpolled
(and
outwinked) the votes to Romney-Ryan.

And the good news rolls on: fake debates came and went,
gaffes didn't disqualify, and America survived another suspense-packed media
circus. Reactionary donors didn't buy the election, as feared, though they
warped the discourse by exiling climactic issues: energy planning, Wall Street
reform, drone killers, global warming, Afghanistan, education and immigration. Minor
stuff, really. Did more billionaires ever waste more treasure failing to
convince more doubters we all share the same economic interests? And the
president got away with never fleshing in what a second term presaged, his pitch reduced to: "Not
Romney." Oddly, Mitt the bereft plied the same waters: "Not Obama."

Frivolities aside, Republican dinosaurs tanked because they
fell into their own dazzling quicksand of contradictions, exposing both
intellectual fraudulence and ideological perversity. Even
gullible Americans, eager to endorse UFOs and angelic (or satanic) intervention
but not evolution, are growing up (and growing younger). Despite sham
indirections, Romney-Ryan personified the rightwing swamp, swarming with
deception, denial, blarney, and delusion. To wit:

With a refreshing demonstration the Big Lie doesn't always
gain by repetition, the confluence of Romney's robotic personhood reinforced
the core vacuity of the GOP con game replayed here one too many times. Thus, big
government is diabolical when serving up social justice or safety nets,
emergency relief, science education and research, safety and environmental
regulations. Drown that overpriced sucker.

Yet, when empire building or tax cutting for
the rich, jailing criminals or forcing women to give birth, paying out oil,
resource, or farm subsidies, government is the glory of law and order, the
foundation of civilization. Throw in handgun laxity or abusing the rights of
dissenters, accused terrorists and whistleblowers, then intrusive government
cannot be too big. Contradictions rule the right, like those who worship Jesus
but also capital punishment, sanctify the unborn but pardon killers of abortion
doctors.

What Obama's win, alongside surging Democratic
senators, disrupted was the dubious marriage between billionaires dying to own
the government and fundamentalists dying to institutionalize regressive morality.
This election exploded Reaganite propaganda that "big government" is the
problem by spotlighting the true middle-class nemesis: reactionary,
class warriors who demonize government for contesting their unbridled
freedom to get richer. Federalism is hardly perfect. but a majority of voters reinforced
Washington as the strongest bulwark against the terrors of predatory
capitalism, economic cycles and man-made "natural" disasters.

Glaring Contradiction Two: Plutocrats Should Run Democracy

America still boasts an increasingly inclusive, less racist
electorate, and ethnic diversity honors a messy democracy. Did this election not displace
white, affluent dominance with a much-poorer rainbow of minorities? The results
clarified the battle lines between a concentrated plutocracy vs. the authority
of a democratic majority. In this regard, Romney was the perfect candidate to set
forth the contradiction that heartless plutocrats cannot rule a vital,
compassionate democracy. Enter the first predatory capitalist to loom over the
presidency and his explicit performance, as a narrow, mean-spirited, out-of-touch hustler, came right
out of central casting. Bravo for the only positive from an insane GOP primary;
even goofy McCain would have fared better.

Whatever enduring Citizens United ripples, 2012
defined a new coalition that rejected the 1% Rove billionaires and demanded, at
the least, fairer taxation. More bumps will come (if 2014 turnout is low) but
2016 should reprise the same question: will this demographically-enriched
majority get to rule, even offset House gerrymandering, or
will narcissistic robber barons sustain their unwarranted power. Along with bashing the
wobbly billionaire-Tea Party alliance, this new coalition should declare open
season on the perverse, plutocratic equation of money as free speech.

Either good government advances the "general welfare" (with
public education, social justice, family and small business support), or we
lose what's left of our once vaunted socio-economic mobility. Thus, campaign debate
over "who built what," or the "profits" that accrue from tax dollars, are
healthy checks on outdated myths. What more undermined the fiction of "self-made
billionaires" this season than the display of desperate manipulation that disregarded
collective, national needs for private, selfish gains?

What is tawdrier than a few hundred super-rich families
investing a few hundred million each to enhance assets worth many more billions? As Elizabeth Warren
proclaimed: "You built a factory out there? Good for you," yet "you
moved your goods to market on the roads the rest of us paid for; you hired
workers the rest of us paid to educate; you were safe in your factory because
of police forces and fire forces that the rest of us paid for." And then she brilliantly defined the community- democracy partnership: "Now look, you built a factory and it
turned into something terrific, or a great idea? God bless. Keep a big hunk of
it. But part of the underlying social contract is, you take a hunk of that and
pay forward for the next kid who comes along." This theme deserves a replay every election.

Glaring Contradiction Four: When Ignorance is Neither
Bliss, Nor Power

The rightwing allergy to reality is now front and center:
blunt denial of unarguable, tested knowledge defies reality and corrupts truth.
Worse still is the projection of bad will onto honorable scientists:
evolution and climate change aren't just wrong or misguided, but hoaxes
invented to hoodwink fools. Irony, anyone? So, the right defies underpaid
climate experts but imbibes the overpaid FOX goons dishing out fear,
paranoia, and conspiracy theories.

That fishy logic won't swim.

Thank any deity you like for Todd Akin and Richard Mourdock,
offering this year's most unintended blessings. When jaw-dropping
absurdities
about sex go national, the media has to tell the truth and debunk the
magic
thinking of Biblical literalists. Did Akin and Mourdock not discredit
the entire GOP platform, let alone amendment talk to ban all abortions
or gay marriage?
Knowledge may be complicated, even controversial, but this season we
observed how simple, and
simple-minded, bloody ignorance on parade can be, with direct political
payoffs.

Glaring Contradiction Five: When Social Wedge Issues Lose
their Edges

So, now we know any party warring against millions of
voters -- whether women, minorities, immigrants, gays, or the jobless
poor --
contradicts its core interests. 2012 confirmed the shelf life of noxious
wedge issues used to elect W. (free abortions, gay rights, looming gun
bans) have long expired. Even slurs against the Muslim, socialist
non-citizen
boomeranged. When racist, homophobic code is decoded, then exposed, even
mere headline readers gag on crude bait-and-switch politics. Indeed, we
learned that when divisive wedge issues lose their edges, they morph into
blunt instruments that
bloody the maker, not the victim target. Bring on the Birthers,
broadcasting
the impervious, intellectual bankruptcy of the extreme, illiterate
right.

Overall, the Republican Tea Party was slammed not simply because
Democrats ran terrific campaigns, but because so many core GOP
contradictions
imploded, then exploded, the huge price for living way too long in deluded
bubbles. That doesn't mean billionaires or Tea Party wingnuts
will clean
up their intellectual acts, nor develop Christian tolerance to other
points of
view. But this election turned the corner, displaying how entrenched,
unbaked contradictions,
when outliving all usefulness, reverse into weapons of
self-destruction. Reality, like truth, will out in a world where
contradictions
are exposed, and for me that's what made this election memorable.

For a decade, Robert S. Becker's rebel-rousing essays on politics and culture analyze overall trends, messaging and frameworks, now featured author at OpEdNews, Nation of Change and RSN. He appears regularly at Dissident Voice, with credits (more...)